Urban Tree Mortality: a Primer on Demographic Approaches

Martin Ford
Oct 1
1 min read

Lara A Roman, John J Battles, Joe R McBride

2016-03-01

United States Dept of Agriculture

Tags: Urban tree mortality

However, realizing the ecosystem services associated with planting depends on tree survival. Despite the major focus on city tree planting over the past few decades, Nowak and Greenfield found that overall canopy cover levels in major US cities have been declining [5].

This report is a primer on demographic concepts applied to urban trees, with terms and analytical methods adapted to the cultivated urban landscape. It includes an overview of the uses of urban tree mortality rate data for research and management, a summary of lessons learned from ecological monitoring in other systems, and a discussion of opportunities for long-term urban forest monitoring by researchers and practitioners. Urban tree demography is essential to understanding temporal changes in urban forest systems, just as tree demography is used to analyze changes in natural forest systems.